Henry doesn’t return by noon, and when I ask around, no one seems to know where he went or if he’s gotten a new assignment from Dr. O. I keep my phone on me at all times, but he doesn’t answer my texts. He’s as good as any of us, but the way he said my messes makes me think he’s in trouble, and that plus the load of cash he stuffed into his pockets feels like a recipe for disaster.
He’s been hanging out a lot with Grayson this week, though Grayson has yet to come downstairs—probably because he’s avoiding me after last night’s train wreck. I’m just getting up the nerve to confront him about his fight—if that’s what it was—with Sam, when I see Caleb coming down the stairs. He’s not in his usual Sunday morning lounge pants or sexy white V-neck T-shirt, nor does he have a bag hooked over his shoulder like he’s off somewhere to study.
He’s going out.
Every worry Dr. O expressed comes alive in my mind as I follow Caleb to the front door. He grabs his coat off the rack, and like he knows I’m tailing him, he looks back over his shoulder.
I step into view, racked by a sudden burst of nerves.
“Hey,” he says, a guarded hope in his eyes as he shrugs into his coat. He looks over my shoulder, probably for signs of Grayson, and stiffens when the stairs above my head begin to creak.
“Heading out?” I ask.
He nods. “I have to go meet someone.”
“The new recruit from Sycamore.” I can’t hide my sarcasm.
A brief hesitation trips up his flow. “Yeah.”
He’s lying. It’s so clearly painted across his face and posture, I doubt anyone would believe him. There is no recruit from Sycamore. It was all a story to cover for the fact that he was tailing me.
But I’m here and he’s leaving.
He says he’s going somewhere, then heads another.
It’s one thing that he’s hiding why he followed me and how he knows anything about Susan Griffin, but it’s another if he’s got Dr. O worried. Caleb wouldn’t put us all in danger—he needs this program too much.
So what is he doing?
I step closer, steeling myself to that magnetic pull that’s always between us. “How’s it going with her?”
“All right. She doesn’t seem very careful. What happened last night…” He trails off. Someone’s close now, rounding the bend in the stairs.
“Want some company?” I ask.
He pulls his phone out of his back pocket and scowls down at the clock on the screen. “Maybe next time? I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“Sure.” My smile is thin.
He adjusts his glasses.
Charlotte comes down the stairs, pausing when she sees both of us and then continuing with a thin-lipped smile.
“Oh look. My friends.”
I cringe. She’s not pleased, and I don’t blame her. She was jacked about her birthday, and for all she knows, we ditched.
I have to fix this, but I can’t right now with Caleb lying to my face.
He’s wincing. “Great party last night.”
“Oh.” She feigns surprise. “Were you there?”
Guilt worms its way through suspicion. I shouldn’t have left with Caleb. If I hadn’t, Charlotte wouldn’t be pissed, Grayson wouldn’t be mad, and it wouldn’t sting quite so much that Caleb’s lying to me now.
With a muttered, “Sorry,” Caleb gives her wide berth and strides down the hallway toward the garage. Worry works down my spine as I consider what he has to lose—what we all have to lose—if he’s breaking the rules.
Charlotte tries to pass, but I dodge in front of her.
“Want to go for a ride?”
She tucks her still straightened hair behind one ear. I’m already slipping on my shoes and grabbing my jacket off the rack.
“Not particularly.”
“Please,” I say. “I need your help.”
“And where were you when I needed you last night, huh?”
My heart gives a hard, breath-swallowing pang. She needed me last night? As soon as I settle this with Caleb, I’m officially figuring out a way to kick my own ass.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll tell you if we can go somewhere right now.”
Outside I hear the crackling of gravel as a car pulls out onto the roundabout.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
She sighs.
“Fine,” she concedes. “Where’s security? We need to tell them—”
“I’ll call Moore from the road.” I usher her toward the door. She’s still wearing her pajamas, so I grab a coat off the rack. It’s not hers, but it’ll do the job.
Muttering complaints, she grabs the keys to the Jeep, and I all but shove her through the garage into the driver’s seat.
“Come on,” I tell her. “We have to move.”
With a bitter look, she starts the ignition, and we pull out onto the driveway.
I need my license ASAP.
“You want to tell me where we’re going?” she asks. “I’m guessing this isn’t school-sanctioned, otherwise you’d ask Moore to take you.”
“We’re going that way. Hurry.” I point to the end of the long driveway, where Caleb’s car is passing through the gate onto the street.
The Jeep slows.
“Are we seriously stalking your boyfriend?”
I press a hand on her knee, and when her foot slams down on the gas we lurch backward.
“It’s just some light stalking,” I say.
“Why?”
“Call it curiosity.”
Her frown unlocks, and soon enough, we’re racing after the black car.
“So what’d he do?” she asks.
“I don’t know yet. He’s just acting funny.”
“You think?” she deadpans. “That dance at Family Day with Geri? What the hell was that?”
Jealousy prickles through me. “Don’t ask me.”
We follow at a close distance—close enough I begin to wonder if Charlotte’s done this kind of thing before.
“Where’d you guys go last night?”
I grip the door as she swings around a turn.
“We had to talk.”
“Is ‘talk’ code for ‘make out’? Because don’t think I didn’t notice that Grayson was missing, too.” She smirks across the car at me.
“You’re right,” I say. “We definitely snuck out to have a threesome.”
“How was it?” She makes another turn, Caleb’s bumper in view three cars ahead. “Kind of awkward? Seems like there’d be a lot of elbows and knees involved.”
I groan. “So many knees.”
As we come to a stoplight, the comfortable silence grows brittle.
I clear my throat. “Caleb and I kissed, and Grayson caught us.”
“Oh shit.”
“That’s what Caleb said.”
“What’d you do?”
I slump in the seat, my heels tapping against the floorboards. “Chased after Grayson. Told him I’m the worst.”
“You kind of are.”
I’m not forgiven for the party, but I think she might be joking.
“What’d he say?” she asks.
“He agreed.” I grip my knees, wishing this part wasn’t so hard. “I’m sorry I missed the rest of your party.”
Her right shoulder lifts, then falls. “Whatever. It’s fine.”
We both know it’s not.
The light turns green, and we pull forward. But Caleb’s turn signal is already on, and he’s heading into a lot marked Sikawa City Transit Authority.
The train station.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I tell her. “We’ll go out dancing. I’ll buy you a whole cake.”
Her green eyes light up in a scary way. “And a new cashmere sweater?”
I think of the Ginger Princess T-shirt I made, still sitting in a wrapped box in my closet. I’d intended to give it to her after the party, when she could try it on as we ate M&M’s and hung out, but maybe that wasn’t a good idea after all. “Sure.”
“And some earrings. Good ones. Platinum.”
Danger, danger, danger. “I guess?”
She slumps in her seat. “You sound like the girls on my assignments.”
The rich girls, she means. I feel something tear inside me. Charlotte barely knew me on my birthday, and she still threw a basement party, with a homemade cake, and gave me a lei made out of construction paper. It’s not about stuff, it’s about being there.
She’s been there, and I haven’t.
But still, her party was for fun. This is serious. This is Caleb, possibly jeopardizing all of our positions at Vale Hall. If she knew what was at stake, she wouldn’t be so upset.
She pulls into a spot in the back of the lot. “Have fun stalking.”
I open the door to get out, eyes trained on Caleb’s car as he finds a closer spot.
“Pick me up later?” I ask, guilt spreading. I know what it looks like—like I’m that girl who ditches her friends for a boy—but this is different. Caleb’s gotten himself into some kind of trouble. Dr. O thinks he’s endangering the program. When I get back I’ll explain everything. Charlotte will understand.
She points to the front of the building. “There he goes.”
With a quick good-bye, I race after Caleb, tugging my coat on as I run. My eyes stay trained on his glossy black hair and his leather coat as his stride picks up speed. Inside, he bypasses the pay stations and heads straight toward the turnstiles. I race after him, digging through my pockets for a leftover ticket.
With fifty cents left on my pass, I make it through the metal arm and keep a careful distance behind Caleb as he takes the escalator to the upper level. At the top, he waits near the edge of the platform, checking his phone with a scowl creasing his brow.
Did someone send him a message, or is he just checking the time?
Who is he in such a hurry to meet?
Gripped by a sudden change of conscience, I fall back into the crowd. This is Caleb I’m following. The same boy I was making out with last night. The guy who brought me into the fold of Vale Hall, and taught me the ropes, and drew pictures of me alongside skyscrapers in a copy of A Tale of Two Cities.
This is the same Caleb who introduced me to his family. I have hugged his mom, and laughed with his brothers, and seen his dad pinned together by metal and machines.
This is the Caleb I’ve wondered if I’m in love with.
Following him breaks something between us. This is a line I’m crossing, and if I continue, whatever trust is between us will be gone.
I wonder if he thought this same thing when he followed me to Risa’s.
My resolve hardens as the train pulls into the station. With a hiss, the doors bounce open. Caleb gets inside one car, and just like he did the first day he followed me back to Devon Park, I get in behind him.
He doesn’t see me—I make sure of it. I keep to the back of the crowded compartment, standing with the other passengers, my face to the window. I watch him through the reflection in the glass, his face warped with worry as he checks his phone again.
Doubt needles through my suspicion.
By the time we reach our first stop, I’m wondering if he really is going to Sycamore Township to follow some new recruit, or to his father’s care home in White Bank. He could have told security he was going out on assignment as a cover, but really something happened with his dad, and he didn’t tell me because he knew Grayson might be listening. The story’s so built up in my mind, I’m almost shocked when he gets off the train at Lake Street in Uptown.
I follow fifteen feet behind him as he skips down the stairs and walks quickly into the heart of the business district. I’ve come to recognize these streets since I began my internship, and as we pass the police station on my left, I shiver, thinking of Jimmy Balder’s parents walking down the steps in that picture on Dr. O’s laptop.
A block past the station, before we get to the Macintosh Building where The Loft and Sterling’s campaign headquarters are located, Caleb turns. The sidewalk is crowded with commuters, and I nearly lose him as he ducks through a restaurant’s outdoor seating area, past a metal cylindrical heater, and cuts into an alley. Near the edge, I pause, reluctant to follow with so few people to hide behind.
He doesn’t go far. As I wait beside the heater, warming my hands with the other customers waiting to get in, I see him slow beside the restaurant’s kitchen exit. He walks hesitantly forward, then stops and rolls back his shoulders. His next steps are steady, more confident.
I’ve seen this change in him before—right before he runs game.
Repositioning myself on the other side of the heater, I can make out the shadowed profile of another person—a girl, I’m guessing, based on the curves and height. A cold readiness washes over me before I consider the options of who this might be or why Caleb’s meeting her in some shady alley in Uptown. If he’s in trouble, I’m close enough to step in.
He stands two feet away from the other person, his head tilted down as he listens to what she has to say. His hair hides his eyes—I can’t make out his take on the situation—and when she slides toward him, I edge closer to the corner, prepared to come to his defense.
The way he did when I was with Mark.
I swallow my shame. This can’t be his assignment—he was supposed to tail the new girl, not make contact. She was in Sycamore, not Uptown.
I tilt my ear toward the alley, but it’s impossible to hear him over the noise off the street. The girl is twisting her finger through her hair, drawing Caleb’s gaze there. Then she reaches for him, toying with the collar of his shirt.
I wait.
His hand covers hers.
My stomach twists.
She leans in, whispering something in his ear, so close she could kiss him.
I fight the urge to look away.
My heart counts the seconds until she finally pulls back.
Then Caleb is leaving, heading straight toward me. I should stop him and say something, but I don’t know what. Instead, I turn toward the heater, hiding my face, trying to make sense of what I just witnessed.
Caleb passes without noticing me, heading down the street in the same direction we came. I feel like I’ve done something awful, like I’ve drunk poison and am waiting for it to take hold.
I wait until the girl leaves the alley, needing to see who Caleb’s come all this way to meet in secret. I tuck my chin into the collar of my coat and keep my head turned as she approaches. My hands fist in front of the heater. I have no right to be angry with her, not after what’s happened with Grayson. But I am.
Then she steps into the light, and I feel as if the ground has given way beneath my feet, and I’m falling straight through to the sewer below.
Long black hair braided over her shoulder.
Copper skin and dark eyes.
A black skirt and a wool coat, open to reveal a white button-down top with a snug black tie.
Myra Fenrir.